Sense and Sensibility Elinor Dashwood Quotes

Elinor Dashwood

Quote 10

His want of spirits, of openness, and of consistency, were most usually attributed to his want of independence, and his better knowledge of Mrs. Ferrars's disposition and designs. The shortness of his visit, the steadiness of his purpose in leaving them, originated in the same fettered inclination, the same inevitable necessity of temporizing with his mother. The old, well-established grievance of duty against will, parent against child, was the cause of all. (19.2)

Here, Elinor comes right out and blames the "fettering" relationship of mother and son for Edward's weird behavior – family, we see, is a kind of ball and chain, as well as a support mechanism.

Elinor Dashwood

Quote 11

As these considerations occurred to her in painful succession, she wept for him more than for herself. Supported by the conviction of having done nothing to merit her present unhappiness, and consoled by the belief that Edward had done nothing to forfeit her esteem, she thought she could even now, under the first smart of the heavy blow, command herself enough to guard every suspicion of the truth from her mother and sisters. And so well was she able to answer her own expectations, that when she joined them at dinner only two hours after she had first suffered the extinction of all her dearest hopes, no one would have supposed from the appearance of the sisters, that Elinor was mourning in secret over obstacles which must divide her for ever from the object of her love, and that Marianne was internally dwelling on the perfections of a man, of whose whole heart she felt thoroughly possessed, and whom she expected to see in every carriage which drove near their house. (23.3)

Sigh. Again, we have to say it – poor Elinor! She's just had her hopes and dreams crushed, and now she has to reevaluate her whole future life. To make matters worse, she can't even tell anyone about it.